Phoenixville Area High School to partner with Rosemont College for teaching academy'

PHOENIXVILLE — Beginning next year, Phoenixville Area High School students will have the chance to earn an associate’s degree in child development before they even get to college.

Thanks to a partnership with Rosemont College and the efforts of food and consumer science teacher Paula Dugan, students can achieve college-level courses in-house at the high school to achieve the degree.

“(Our students) already are taking some curriculum that would fill those requirements but we’re trying to get to the top of the pyramid,” said Jan Potts, the school board’s vice president and head of the curriculum committee.

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Potts, detailing the program at a Jan. 10 board workshop meeting, credited Dugan with helping establish the program.

Phoenixville Assistant Superintendent Regina Palubinsky said Dugan was “very instrumental in developing the teacher academy at the Chester County Intermediate Unit.” As such, she’ll likely bring the experience from the program.

Potential benefits of having a program in the district drove the idea for the program.

“It would be allowing our students to take courses within our own school, get the dual enrollment credits with Rosemont College and also work with (Phoenixville Area School District elementary school) students,” Palubinsky said. “Sometimes when they go to the (intermediate unit) they work (with students) at Perkiomen Valley, or Downingtown or another school.”

The high school students in the program would be able to go to the Kindergarten Center to fulfill some of the required hours their curriculum has for working with children.

School Board President Joshua Gould asked whether the in-house teacher academy should serve as a replacement for the one offered at the county’s intermediate unit.

“If those are the advantages, that’s good,” he said. “Should it be a replacement for what we’re currently operating with?”

“At this point, it has not been said it’s an either/or,” Palubinsky said.

“I think it will become clear what the value of each (teacher academy) is,” as Phoenixville’s program starts up, Potts said. “But we won’t know that until we run it.”

One of the advantages of having a teacher academy in the district is that the intermediate unit’s academy does not have space for all students, according to Potts, while the one in Phoenixville would only be filled by in-house students.

Gould suggested revisiting the topic next year after the in-house academy started up.

In the meantime, Palubinsky said the Phoenixville program will likely be popular.

“Many of the students have said they would opt to stay here,” Palubinsky said.

The materials necessary for starting the course were believed to be already budgeted for last year, Potts said.

By a unanimous vote that was missing just Irfan Kahn, the board approved the teaching academy at their Jan. 17 meeting.

The board also approved adding three classes that will be taught as a part of the academy: “Children’s Literature,” “Introduction to Education” and “Topics in Learning: Individual Difference in Teaching and Learning.”